Direct Observations and Color-Redshift Plots of Quasar Host Galaxies at High Redshift

Abstract

We present a list of 29 objects between the redshifts (z) of 3 and 5 with detectable host galaxies. These objects were gathered from Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) data, using quasars identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's 14th data release that were also in the areas imaged by HSC. They were all imaged in the g, r, i, z, and y bands. The initial data set numbered approximately 80,000 objects. These objects were then fit as a sum of a point source and a Sérsic function using Dr. Chien Y. Peng's GALFIT galaxy-fitting algorithm (Peng et al., 2002, 2010). In total, 7,421 objects with detectable host galaxies were found. It was decided to focus on the 239 objects in the range 3 < z < 5. The final 29 objects were determined by a series of rejections based on goodness-of-fit, whether the parameters were physically reasonable, and how noisy the background sky was. We detail the redshifts, i-band magnitudes, 50%-light radii, Sérsic indices and axis ratios of these objects, as determined by GALFIT. We also provide color images of the objects and host galaxies, with the R, G, and B channels provided by the i, r, and g bands, respectively. In addition, we also present color-redshift plots in g - i, g - r, g - y, i - z, r - i, and z - y across the range z < 6. There is still much science to be done on the remaining 7,182 objects at z < 3.